The 2007 Cimmerian Awards
Awarded for outstanding achievement in Robert E. Howard studies during the calendar year 2006 (Howard’s Centennial).
The winners of the third annual Cimmerian Awards were announced on the evening of Friday, June 8th 2007, live at Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains.
THE WINNERS
The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book By a Single Author
MARK FINN, for Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. HowardThe Valusian — Outstanding Achievement, Anthology
DENNIS McHANEY, for The Man from Cross Plains: A Centennial Celebration of Two-Gun Bob HowardThe Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
First Place: BILL CAVALIER, for “How Robert E. Howard Saved My Life” (from The Cimmerian V3n6)
Second Place: STEVE TOMPKINS, for “The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers” (from The Cimmerian V3n3)
Third Place: JOHN HAEFELE, for “Skull-Face and Others at Sixty” (from The Cimmerian V3n9)The Aquilonian — Outstanding Achievement, Periodical
LEO GRIN, for The Cimmerian Volume 3The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website
MARK FINN, LEO GRIN, [redacted], STEVE TOMPKINS: The Cimmerian BlogThe Venarium Award — Emerging Scholar
JOHN HAEFELEThe Black River Award — Special Achievement
DON HERRON, for finding both the original Kline typescript to A Gent from Bear Creek and the collection of books owned by Dr. I. M. Howard.The Black Circle Award — Lifetime Achievement
RUSTY BURKE and DON HERRON (tie), dual inductees.The Black Circle Award — 2008 nominee
NOVALYNE PRICE ELLIS, (posthumous)
Full details of this year’s Awards will soon be available in The Cimmerian‘s annual Awards issue for 2007.
THE 2007 CIMMERIAN AWARDS — LIST OF NOMINEES
The Atlantean — Outstanding Achievement, Book by a Single Author
(for the purposes of this award, a book is any publication which is perfect-bound, over 50 pages, and has a stated intention of being a one-shot item)
WINNER: FINN, MARK: Blood & Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard
HERMAN, PAUL: The Neverending Hunt: A Bibliography of Robert E. Howard
THOMAS, ROY: Conan: The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian
The Valusian — Outstanding Achievement, Anthology
(for the purposes of this award, a book is any publication which is perfect-bound, over 50 pages, and has a stated intention of being a one-shot item)
WINNER: McHANEY, DENNIS: The Man from Cross Plains: A Centennial Celebration of Two-Gun Bob Howard
SZUMSKYJ, BENJAMIN: Two-Gun Bob: A Centennial Study of Robert E. Howard
The Hyrkanian — Outstanding Achievement, Essay
(Essays must have made their first public published appearance in the previous calender year. Short interviews, speeches, book introductions, short reviews and other minor works do not count. Remember, you need to allocate your total number of votes three times for this category: once for First Place, once for Second, and again for Third. Also remember, for each of those places you can split your total between several essays you feel are deserving of votes.)
ANDERSSON, MARTIN
“Stars and Strong Men: The Science and Cosmic Fiction of Robert E. Howard” (from Two-Gun Bob)
ARNEY, TIMOTHY W.
“Howard and the Picts: A Probable Genesis for ‘Worms of the Earth'” (from The Chronicler of Cross Plains #2)
AVACATO, ANTHONY
“The Lancer Legacy of Frank Frazetta” (from The Cimmerian V3n5)
BLOSSER, FRED
“From Ala to Zarfhaana: The Names of the Pre-Cataclysmic Age” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“Sleuths, Secrets, and Grisly Mysteries: The Detective Fiction of Robert E. Howard” (from Two-Gun Bob)
BREAKIRON, LEE
“A Brownwood Memory” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
BURGER, PATRICK R.
“‘Red Shadows’ Through the Lens of Northrop Frye’s Archetypal Criticism” (from The Dark Man V2n1-2)
BURKE, RUSTY
“Cross Plains, Hometown of My Heart” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“The Note” (from The Cimmerian V3n1)
“Robert E. Howard: New Deal Heroic Fantasist” (from The Dark Man V2n1-2)
“To The or Not to The” (from The Chronicler of Cross Plains #2)
CAVALIER, BILL
“The Black Stranger and Why I Hate It So: A Derisive Assessment of a Conan Story Way Too Many People Think is Great” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“Cross Plains, REHupa and Me” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
FIRST PLACE WINNER: “How Robert E. Howard Saved My Life” (from The Cimmerian V3n6)
CHARLES, J. D.
“REH and Guns” (from The Cimmerian V3n1)
COFFMAN, FRANK
“Robert E. Howard and Poetic Narrative: The Bardic Tradition and ‘Popular Modernities'” (from The Dark Man V2n1-2)
“Texas Talespinner: Robert E. Howard’s Ways with Words” (from Two-Gun Bob)
COLLINS, NANCY A.
“Of Red-Headed Stepchildren & Cojones: An Appreciation of Robert E. Howard’s Conan” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
DIRDA, MICHAEL
“Hacking his way from one crisis to another — the quintessential fighting man” (from The Washington Post)
DiTOMMASO, LORENZO, Ph.D.
“The Persistence of the Familiar: The Hyborian World and the Geographies of Fantastic Literature” (from Two-Gun Bob)
FINN, MARK
“How to be a Howard Guerrilla” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
GOBBETT, EDWARD
“Chasing the Grail” (from The Cimmerian V3n8)
GOODRICH, JOHN
“. . . From Acorns Grow: Robert E. Howard Revealed in Post Oaks and Sand Roughs” (from Two-Gun Bob)
GRAMLICH, CHARLES, Ph.D.
“Robert E. Howard: A Behavioral Perspective” (from Two-Gun Bob)
GRIN, LEO
“Birth and Death” (from The Cimmerian V3n1)
“The Everlasting Barbarian: REH at 100 Years” (from Weird Tales #341)
GRUBER, CHRIS
“Atavists All? Howard’s Boxing Heroes As Throwbacks” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
GUARRIELLO, PIETRO
“Laudator Temporis Acti: History and Myth in the Works of Robert E. Howard” (from Two-Gun Bob)
HAEFELE, JOHN D.
THIRD PLACE WINNER: “Skull-Face and Others at Sixty” (from The Cimmerian V3n9)
HALL, MARK
“Crash Go the Civilizations: Some Notes on Robert E. Howard’s Use of History and Anthropology” (from The Dark Man V2n1-2)
HARDY, DAVID A.
“Indomitable Wildness, Unquenchable Vitality” (from The Cimmerian V3n4)
HENDERSON, SCOTTY
“A Brief Publishing History of Gnome Press and the Conan Series” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
HERRIDGE, MATT
“Red Shadows: The Temptation of Solomon Kane” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #10)
HERRON, DON
“‘It Is My Desire'” (from The Cimmerian V3n9)
“The Shadow of the Dragon” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“Ur Gent” (from The Cimmerian V3n8)
HOFFMAN, CHARLES
“‘Bitter Pleasures and Swinish Stupidity’: Howard’s Take on Human Character” (from Two-Gun Bob)
HOLMES, MORGAN
“Pulpcon 2006: Where’s the Howard?” (from The Cimmerian V3n9)
JOSHI, S. T.
“Bran Mak Morn and History” (from Two-Gun Bob)
KELSEY, RICK
“Birthday Bash at the Torch” (from The Cimmerian V3n2)
“Celebration of the Century” (from The Cimmerian V3n7)
LENO, BRIAN
“Cross Plains 1967: Missed Opportunities” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation” (from The Cimmerian V3n2)
LORD, GLENN
“The Junto: Being a Brief Look at the Amateur Press Association Robert E. Howard Partook In as a Youth” (from Two-Gun Bob)
“A Vulture Comes Up Snake Eyes” (from The Cimmerian V3n2)
LOUINET, PATRICE
“Atlantean Genesis” (from Kull: Exile of Atlantis)
“The Mysterious Isle” (from The Dark Man V3n1)
“NeO — The French Howard Connection” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
LUPOFF, RICHARD A.
“Long Ago and Far Away” (from The Cimmerian V3n5)
MELCHIONE, LINDA
“How Wide Was the Whole Wide World?” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
MILLER, JOHN J.
“From Pen to Sword” (from The Wall Street Journal)
NIELSEN, LEON
“Pseudo Boom” (from The Cimmerian V3n5)
POORE, ANN
“Forbidden Mirrors: Reflections on Robert E. Howard” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
RICHTER, LARRY
“Fate and Danger” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
[redacted]
ROMEO, GARY
“‘Once I Was John Wesley Hardin!'” (from The Cimmerian V3n3)
“‘Soulless and Deadly'” (from The Chronicler of Cross Plains #2)
“Viagra for the Soul” (from The Cimmerian V3n5)
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Bêlit” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
ROSSON, JENNIFER
“Robert E. Howard: Barbarian & Neighbor” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
SALLEY, DORIS J.
“Howard Who?. . .” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
SASSER, DAMON C.
“Echoes From Bal-Sagoth” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“The Mysteriously Mysterious Jenkins Gent Mystery” (from The Cimmerian V3n8)
“The Swift and the Doomed: The Corruption of the Short Version of ‘Three-Bladed Doom'” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #10)
SCHWEITZER, DARRELL
“Two Barbarian Usurpers” (from The Cimmerian V3n4)
SHEAFFER, SCOTT
“El Borak, the Swift” (from Two-Gun Bob)
STEPHENSON, ARLENE
“The Fire That Spread Around the World” (from The Cimmerian V3n2)
STREET, DANNY
“A Death By Incarceration?” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
“Treasures of Our Own” (from The Cimmerian V3n8)
SZUMSKYJ, BENJAMIN
“Cimmerian Gloves: Studying Robert E. Howard’s Ace Jessel from the Ringside” (from Two-Gun Bob)
“For the Love of Robert E. Howard” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #9)
“Savage Songs from a Sinful Sea: Robert E. Howard’s Faring Town Trilogy” from Wormwood #6, Spring 2006
TETRO, MICHELE
“Words from the Outer Dark: The Poetical Works of Robert E. Howard” (from Two-Gun Bob)
TOMPKINS, STEVE
“‘Black Stone’ In A Red Setting: Howard’s Midsummer Night’s Dream” (from The Chronicler of Cross Plains #2)
“Green Roaring Tides of the Atlantean Sea: Kull’s Emerald Epic” (from REH: Two-Gun Raconteur #10)
“Introduction to Kull: Exile in Atlantis” (from Kull: Exile of Atlantis)
“Sailor Steve Meets Winston Smith” (from The Cimmerian V3n9)
SECOND PLACE WINNER: “The Shortest Distance Between Two Towers” (from The Cimmerian V3n3)
TROUT, STEVEN
“Gothic Influences” (from The Man from Cross Plains)
The Aquilonian — Outstanding Achievement, Periodical
(for the purposes of this award, a periodical is any publication which has a stated intention of being a continuous series of items, even if only one issue appeared during the year in question, and even if the periodical’s length would otherwise qualify it as a book)
WINNER: GRIN, LEO: The Cimmerian Volume 3
HALL, MARK: The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies
SASSER, DAMON: REH: Two-Gun Raconteur and Chronicler of Cross Plains
VAN HISE, JAMES: Sword & Fantasy
The Stygian — Outstanding Achievement, Website
(Nominees are limited to Internet sites with a main purpose of archiving REH scholarship. Chat groups and e-mail lists do not qualify. To get on the ballot, each website must have updated their content at least once in the past year.)
WINNER: FINN, GRIN, [redacted], TOMPKINS: The Cimmerian Blog
GRIN, LEO: The REHupa website
HERMAN, PAUL: HowardWorks
RIPPKE, DALE: Heroes of Dark Fantasy
WATERMAN, EDWARD A.: The Barbarian Keep
The Venarium Award — Emerging Scholar
(Nominees have never won a Cimmerian Award before, and in the last year displayed the beginnings of what could be a movement into the upper echelon of Howard movers and shakers. You can only be nominated for this award once, in the year you make your first big push into the wider world of Howard publishing and scholarship.)
WINNER: HAEFELE, JOHN: John’s first major Howard essay appeared in December of 2005. Titled “REH in the Necronomicon Press,” it delved deeper than ever before into the wide presence of REH in that publisher’s catalogue. This year he wrote a second essay that indisputably put him at the forefront of REH scholarship, V3n9’s “Skull-Face and Others at Sixty,” an essay that dug up a host of new information about the early years of Howard publishing. And all of this was capped by a Cimmerian Library booklet dedicated to nudging August Derleth scholarship forward. Few can compete with the depth and breadth of John’s Howardian research during the past year, and he’s only getting started.
LENO, BRIAN: Brian first made a name for himself in The Cimmerian by handily outpointing HPL scholar S. T. Joshi in The Lion’s Den — we haven’t heard from poor S. T. since! In February of 2006 Brian published “Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation,” presenting a host of intriguing theories about the story “Pigeons from Hell,” and how REH may have written it with Lovecraft more firmly in mind than we ever gave him credit for in the past. This one essay generated more wordage in The Den than any other last year, in the process giving Cimmerian readers a wonderful education about the relationship between HPL and REH. Finally in the December TC Leno brings us “Diary of a Bad Man,” his look into one of the strangest of Howard fans. In a single year, Brian vaulted himself into the center of the Howardian maelstrom, and by the look of it he’s not going anywhere.
STREET, DANNY: Danny hails from England, and has been a member of REHupa for several years. But in 2006 he made large strides in the public arena, publishing several notable Howard essays. In The Cimmerian Danny gave us the important piece “Treasures of Our Own,” which brought to light several new copies of the world’s most prized Howard book, 1937’s A Gent from Bear Creek. He also managed to research and revise the total number of known copies of this book in existence, bumping up the number to an even dozen. Add in his contribution to Dennis McHaney’s Man from Cross Plains book, and it’s clear that Danny is set to become a frequently seen name on the Contents pages of your favorite Howard publications.
The Black River Award — Special Achievement
(The following nominees have produced something special that doesn’t fit into any other category: scholarly art, biographical discoveries, etc.)
BURKE, RUSTY and ANCIANO, MARCELO: for their heroic efforts in preserving the bid for Howard at the World Fantasy Convention, without which REH and Texas would have been passed over as the themes.
WINNER: HERRON, DON: for finding both the original Kline typescript to A Gent from Bear Creek and the collection of books owned by Dr. I. M. Howard.
KEEGAN, JIM and RUTH: for Jim and his wife Ruth’s continued writing and illustrating of “The Adventures of Two-Gun Bob,” a well-received comic strip running in Dark Horse’s Conan comic book, using real research from Howard’s letters.
SASSER, DAMON: for discovering that the short version of “Three-Bladed Doom” that had been passed off as “pure Howard” for thirty years actually suffered from serious editorial emendations in all of its published appearances, and for publishing the pure-text for the very first time in his essay “The Swift and the Doomed.”
STREET, DANNY: for finding two additional copies of the ultra-rare Herbert Jenkins A Gent from Bear Creek, for his research cataloging the total number of extant copies in existence, and most of all for his confirming that there was indeed a “cheap edition” of the Jenkins Gent.
The Black Circle Award — Lifetime Achievement
(Given only sporadically as warranted, The Black Circle of Howard Fandom constitutes entering a highly select group of luminaries. To appear on this ballot, nominees must have at least twenty documented years in Howard fandom and receive at least 25% of all votes cast in a past year nominating cycle. The resulting nominees are put on the ballot for a winner-take-all vote. In years where no one has earned a place on the ballot, no award is given. Awards given posthumously will go to the Robert E. Howard Museum in Cross Plains, Texas.)
WINNER: BURKE, RUSTY
WINNER: HERRON, DON
The Black Circle Award — Nominees for next year’s Award
(use your votes here to nominate people for next year’s Black Circle Award ballot. All nominees who get at least 25% of this nominating vote will appear on the ballot. Once someone gets onto the Black Circle ballot — like Rusty and Don have — they are removed from the nominating list below, and they remain on the final winner-take-all ballot above from then on, until they either win or stand alone on the ballot and fail a 60% approve vote, in which case they are bumped back down to the nominating ballot for possible reappraisal in future years.)
BLOSSER, FRED
BYRNE, JACK (posthumous)
CAVALIER, BILL “INDY”
CERASINI, MARC
De CAMP, LYON SPRAGUE (posthumous)
NOMINEE: ELLIS, NOVALYNE PRICE (posthumous)
HOFFMAN, CHARLES
LOVING, BILLIE RUTH (posthumous)
MAREK, JOE
McCOLLUM, RICK
McHANEY, DENNIS
PRICE, ROBERT
SASSER, DAMON
SCHWEITZER, DARRELL
SCITHERS, GEORGE
THOMAS, ROY
TROUT, STEVE
WAGNER, KARL EDWARD (posthumous)
WEINBERG, ROBERT
WRIGHT, FARNSWORTH (posthumous)
